1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to container labels, and more particularly to a label holder capable of attachment to a container and of identifying various properties of the contents within a storage container.
2. Description of Related Art
Containers are used for storage of foodstuffs, hardware, clothing, and a wide range of products. Many containers are disposed of when the contents are used up. Other storage containers are reused and refilled. It is often desirable to know what is stored in a given container and how much of the contents is left in the container, assuming that the contents are used-up at a slow rate, as in breakfast cereal, flour, sugar and other foodstuff commodities. Many containers are available commercially for storage of foodstuffs. Paper and plastic sacks, cans, jars, and glassware are all available for holding and storing such products. These containers however, suffer from the common fault of being difficult to use in that they do not allow one to know the nature of the contents and how much is left in the container without opening the container and inspecting it, and visual inspection may not provide enough information. This is problematic in itself in that opening the container allows air and moisture to enter the container and may hasten spoilage.
An example of this is when a gourmet coffee drinker has several containers of different blends of coffee--they all look very similar if not identical. For instance, it is not possible to tell what blend of coffee is inside a container, or whether it is decaffeinated, and when it was purchased. This kind of information is obviously quite important to many products especially for foods.
The following art defines the present state of this field:
Bredemeier, U.S. Pat. No. 1,649,442 describes a means of labeling containers. It is the object of the invention to enable a housekeeper to utilize containers, such for example as those in which coffee is packed and sold to the consumer, as jars or receptacles for a variety of food products, and to conveniently affix various labels to such containers on defined spaces on the exterior of the same so that a plurality of such containers may be accumulated by a housekeeper for storing various kinds of foods in a neat, orderly and attractive manner.
Keller, U.S. Pat. No. 2,844,893 describes containers such as bottles or prescription vials commonly used by pharmacists to contain prescribed medicines and where it is necessary to individually label each bottle. The object is to provide a container to which the label may be attached without glue and wherein the label is covered by a transparent protective member.
Weiss, U.S. Pat. No. 3,803,738 describes a readily attachable and changeable outdoor advertising sign and a complemental relatively stationary but portable support therefor. The sign comprises a metal picture-type frame. The inner perimeter surfaces of the frame members are E-shaped and provide inward and outward searing channels. The outward channel portions receive and retain the gasket-equipped sealing and weatherproofing edges of a transparent window while the inward channel portions sear and removably retain the marginal edges of a changeable sign, an attractive display-type placard. This composite eye appealing sign is removable but retentively housed and keyed in track portions of a receiver, more particularly, an oriented and coordinating receiver which is recessed in a vertical wall portion of a decorative-type outdoors support, more particularly, a solid waste container or receptacle. This receptacle is preferably of a type which lends itself to litter collecting use on city streets, in keeping with environmental services recommendations.
Ventimiglia et al., U.S. Pat. No. 4,534,391 describes a one-piece plastic insulated beverage receptacle holder having longitudinal side panels, one of which is wider than the remainder and recessed to accommodate ad copy or the like.
Hosking, U.S. Pat. No. 4,877,119 describes an improved drinking-beaker assembly which serves as both a drinking vessel, especially the drinking of water in the course of a diet, and a device for determining the precise amount of liquid consumed. The assembly preferably includes a beaker, a snap-ring collar, indicia for the number of uses and indicia for the volume level within the beaker. The beaker has a base, a wall and an open top. Portions of the wall define an annular groove having an upper rib, a bright and a lower rib. The collar is snugly fitted within the groove for manual, axial rotation of the collar relative to the beaker. The collar further includes a window which is aligned with the use indicia to sequentially indicate the number of consumptive uses of the assembly. The user may fill the beaker to the level of the volume indicia, consume the liquid from the beaker and then rotate the collar with respect to the beaker so that the window exclusively displays
Allegre, U.S. Pat. No. 5,575,096 describes a sleeve for placement around a container that utilizes a single continuous sheet of plastic which is folded into an enclosed shape having a front side, a back side and an overlapping section extending over the front side to form a sleeve body. This enclosed shape is held together by welds formed through adjacent edges of the front and back sides and the overlapping section. At least one precut is formed in the overlapping section. This precut extends parallel to the welds to allow for detachment of a portion of the overlapping section such that the front side is visible. Information can be printed both on the overlapping section and on the front and back sides, so that the sleeve of the invention has a larger surface area for printing than conventional sleeves which include only front and back portions.
In the prior art, additional information about the product is usually written on a plain adhesive label which is applied to the storage container. However, in a storage container that is used again and again for different products or event the same product but with different storage dates, this method is not only inflexible, it is also not visually pleasing, i.e., with label removal remnants, plural label stacking and so on.
The prior art teaches transparent as well as non-transparent containers and adhesive labels. However, the prior art does not teach an apparatus that provides all of the required information about the contents of the container in a visually pleasing fashion. The prior art also does not provide an easy way to change the information to reflect the amount of contents left in the storage container and the nature of the contents when, for instance, a new blend of coffee is being tried. The present invention fulfills these needs and provides further related advantages as described in the following summary.